The first time Senior Airman Abel Fregoso applied to become an American citizen, his application was denied.
Fregoso, 33, was born in Mexico and grew up in Mexicali — a town on the border of the U.S. and Mexico.
He moved to the United States when he was 15 and received his green card.
Fregoso said one of the challenges he had to overcome was his inability to speak English.
Though he took English in school while in Mexico, he said he found he didn’t speak much English when he arrived in California because he was most often around Latinos.
“I wasn’t that confident in the way I spoke,” he said. “I was just speaking the bare minimum of what I needed to; but I had really awesome people working with me, so they helped me to start speaking English.”
When he first arrived in the U.S., he lived right next to the Mexico border.
He remembers seeing the fence at the border of the city he grew up in from the city he moved to.
Midway through college, and struggling to break into the real estate business in the mid-2000s, Fregoso decided to join the Air Force, he said.
“I liked planes, so I was thinking about joining a long, long time ago, when I was still in college,” he said.
He arrived at Pope Army Airfield in October 2018, where his job focuses on passenger and fleet services for the Air Force under the 43rd Air Mobility Squadron.
Fregoso said it was also in 2018 that he first applied to become an American citizen and learned his application was rejected in 2019.
He said the reason for the denial seemed to be related to how long he had lived in Mexico.
“Even though I was living on the border, I kind of preferred the lifestyle of the U.S,” he said of why he wanted to become an American.
Coming from a large family — 10 aunts and uncles on his mother’s side and 12 aunts and uncles on his father’s side — Fregoso said a few relatives became American citizens before he did.
“They were actually surprised the first time I applied when I told them I got rejected,” he said. “They were surprised about it, because they were like, ‘You were the guy who wanted to become a citizen from the very start.'”
The process for his first application took about 10 months.
The second time he applied, it also took about 10 months, he said, and officials used his first application.
After submitting the application, he said, he had to take a test that gauged his ability to speak, write and read in English along with completing an interview.
In November, he became an American.
“I feel like it was a lifted weight from my shoulders,” he said. “I just wanted to become an American, because I really like this country, and that’s why I wanted to become a citizen. And once I got my citizenship, I just felt awesome. I don’t even know what to say.”
He said he thinks he is able to get the best of two cultures — balancing his Mexican roots with his American citizenship.
Being part of the military, he said, he’s also benefitted from being around multiple cultures.
“I came here to Fort Bragg and met people from around the world,” he said.
One of his roommates is from Fiji, and another friend is from South Africa.
As Fregoso is working toward a bachelor’s degree in information technology management while balancing his Air Force duties, his advice to others who want to become an American citizen is not to give up.
“That’s not only for citizenship — that’s pretty much for anything,” he said. “You want something, just fight for … When I was rejected or am told I can’t do something, I’m like, ‘No I’ll do it, somehow I’ll do it.”
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